In recent years, attention has been drawn to a method (so-called a nano imprint method) wherein a base material is contacted with a mold having a micropattern on its surface to form on the base material surface a reversed pattern of the micropattern (Patent Documents 1 and 2).
Particularly, attention has been drawn to a process for producing a base material having a transferred micropattern and made of a cured product, which employs a mold having a micropattern on its surface, a base material and a photocurable resin and which comprises sequentially carrying out a step of interposing and pressing the photocurable resin between the micropattern surface of the mold and a surface of the base material, a step of applying light from the mold side to cure the photocurable resin to form a cured product, and a step of releasing the cured product from the mold.
As the mold to be used for such a process, a mold made of quartz is usually employed. However, such a mold has low release properties, whereby the precision of the micropattern tends to deteriorate at the time of releasing the cured product from the mold. As a method to improve the release properties, a method of applying a release agent on the micropattern surface of the mold has been proposed. However, due to irregularities in thickness of the applied release agent, the precision of the micropattern of the mold tends to deteriorate. Further, when the mold is used continuously, it is necessary to reapply the release agent, and the production efficiency tends to be low.
Patent Document 3 discloses a mold made of a tetrafluoroethylene polymer, an ethylene/tetrafluoroethylene copolymer or a perfluoroalkoxyvinyl ether polymer.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2004-504718
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2002-539604
Patent Document 3: JP-A-2005-515617